Robert's Infamy!

Tomas V.    Per.2 

Rizzo

A city recently famous for its corruption, bell, has just elected new council members, first time office holders. This council will have to face major decisions on a list of problems that need to be dealt with quickly. A major decision that has to be discussed right will be to keep Bells police or ask for a contract with Los Angeles sheriffs department. This wouldn’t have happened if the 5.6 million dollars missing that Robert Rizzo took from their budget.

            Robert, a former council member of Bell, stole money from the city., abused his power by raising his own and other former council members salary. His personal salary was about 850 thousand dollars a year. His original pay was about 250 thousand a year. The Los Angeles Times wrote that last year alone he made 1.6 million dollars. He was making what an average person of 33 thousand a year makes in his one week of work.  The president makes about one-fourth of what he made last year. He had so much money, if not caught he would have maybe taken much more.            

            Rizzo had given money to other council members and tried to justify it, as they were loans meant to be paid back. He handed out money like crazy. He “lent” 300 thousand to a council member to buy a home. Another council member got 20 thousand to adopt a little girl from TJ. There are records of more “loans”.

            All of the loans he gave out where meant to be paid back and more since there was interest, Robert proclaimed in court. He first appeared in court on August 2010 for a DUI that led to the judge announcing his salary. The announcement led to the investigation that found he had been stealing from the city. Robert and seven others where arrested for miss use of the cities money for their own benefits.  On September Robert faced fifty-three counts of misappropriation of the cities money. Early 2011 Rizzo fell sick and had to be carried out on a gurney since he fell sick. Many people say he was just pretending to be sick so that the jury would have pity on him. He was able to get out two of the three hearing. Robert on mid march was not charged with any of the charges he had been accused of.

            So after taking months of their time the judge had no way of keeping them. According to law they did not do anything wrong. The case isn’t completely closed and still under investigation. So far Robert Rizzo has another couple of charges do to the retirement plan he made for himself.